7 ms·

Fukushima 8 years on – photo essay

117 points by D_Alex 7y ago

D_Alex 7y ago
The other photo essays on the site are well worth checking out also. Especially the one on Buran shuttle!
mkesper 7y ago
Article: Unfortunately, decontamination and cleaning are not enough to revive the city. Residents are needed, but they do not want to come back. They remain suspicious of the actions of the government, which assures them that radiation levels have fallen to safe levels. They remember how, just a few years ago, this same government unilaterally raised them. Additionally, the newly opened cities still lack infrastructure — shops, hospitals and restaurants. And, chiefly, neighbors. As a result, both cities remain practically empty. Eight years after the disaster and two after their opening, only about 5% of residents have returned. The vehicles and people seen on the streets only create the appearance of an inhabited city. The majority are cars belonging to construction companies and workers here to clean the area and demolish buildings.
- busymom0 7y ago
  I am honestly surprised even 5% of the people came back. I personally would not trust a word the government says now considering they were the ones who caused the whole disaster.
  - ptaipale 7y ago
    The "whole disaster" was actually a tsunami caused by an earthquake under the sea, and problems around the nuclear plant are just a tiny side-issue compared to the devastation caused by the tsunami. Perhaps the government - many successive governments - could have changed zoning, building code etc so that the disaster would have been smaller, but the nuclear element of the "whole disaster" is just a minor component.
    - toyg 7y ago
      > the nuclear element of the "whole disaster" is just a minor component. If you consider the tsunami "the whole disaster", yes; but if we restrict the issue to the nuclear accident, the Japanese government carries a lot of responsibility. Fukushima, iirc, was an aging and creaking reactor in a somewhat dangerous location, which should have been decommissioned a long time ago. When disaster struck, official reactions were very opaque to begin with - not as bad as the Soviet ones in Chernobyl but definitely not as open as they should have been. Raising radiation thresholds, as mentioned in the article, was particularly egregious; regardless of whether it may or may not be scientifically correct, it's not the right thing to do after something like this, because the optics are (rightly) damning. So yeah, if the Japanese government had done the right thing by closing down Fukushima 10 years before the tsunami, the city would not have died as it did. That is "the whole disaster" for the area.
      - roenxi 7y ago
        > Raising radiation thresholds, as mentioned in the article, was particularly egregious; regardless of whether it may or may not be scientifically correct ... I might be reading this too literally, but if it is scientifically justifiable to raise the radiation thresholds, why not do it? "The government should make decisions based on science" is a little controversial in some less-reputable quarters, but generally speaking it is a good idea. "Optics" do not take precedence when there is a risk of people are being kicked out of their homes or suffering economic losses for unscientific reasons.
        toyg 7y ago
        > "Optics" do not take precedence when there is a risk of people are being kicked out The duty of care should follow clear priorities: health first, property second. If your priority is really to care for people's health, it's better to be on the safer side, and follow the stricter approach you have on the table. By all means raise thresholds 10 years later "because studies", but not shortly after the accident - regardless of scientific truth, it smacks of interested carelessness while handling people's health. IIRC, people had already been mostly evacuated by that point anyway, it just felt like an attempt to save money and troubles by pushing them back in their homes. Besides, by ignoring optics, they achieved the opposite effect: people distrusted the advice and are still not going back, years after. The government likely lost their trust for ever.
  - ekianjo 7y ago
    So far it seems that only one person of those who tried to rescue the nuclear plant, exposed to high radiations, has contracted cancer and we are not certain it is related. The disaster caused by the Tsunami killed 15 000 people. Yeah, by all accounts you should be a lot more worried by the sea than nuclear.
  - OscarCunningham 7y ago
    You don't need to trust them. It's easy to measure the radiation levels yourself.
    - kaybe 7y ago
      For rough estimations, a smartphone works reasonably well. https://phys.org/news/2014-06-smartphone-detector-app-positive.html https://phys.org/news/2014-06-smartphone-detector-app-positi... eg https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rdklein.radioactivity&hl=en https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rdklein.ra...
    - sametmax 7y ago
      Locally yes, except you move, and you may not want to live your life carrying a Geiger counter, fearing for you life, for the next 10 years. Plus there is food, and water, and those are in flux. And then there are the things we don't know.
      - roenxi 7y ago
        > carrying a Geiger counter, fearing for you life Is the radiation that scary? My understanding it that it is comparable to living in an area with lead in the water or eating a high-mercury diet of fish. You can just do random spot checks and get plenty of data. One walk in a 10x background radiation park isn't going to do you any harm.
        sametmax 7y ago
        Easy to be so rational when it's not your town.
lostlogin 7y ago
Thanks for this. For those interested in radioactive wastelands, the current TV series ‘Chernobyl’ seems very good, and so is the book ‘Chernobyl: The History of a Nuclear Catastrophe’ by Serhii Plokhy https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_(miniseries) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_(miniseries) https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36204894 https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36204894
- erikstarck 7y ago
  Sure, watch it but also read this article for balance: https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelshellenberger/2019/03/11/it-sounds-crazy-but-fukushima-chernobyl-and-three-mile-island-show-why-nuclear-is-inherently-safe/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelshellenberger/2019/03/11... "It Sounds Crazy, But Fukushima, Chernobyl, And Three Mile Island Show Why Nuclear Is Inherently Safe"
  - onli 7y ago
    Written by the president of an openly pro-nuclear organization. Do you really think reading propaganda is the way to get a balanced viewpoint?
    - rurounijones 7y ago
      Because it is on his interest to present the facts (that can be checked) the support nuclear power. Just like an anti nuclear article will present facts ( that can be checked) against it. By reading these two sources I can get both sides of the story and see the arguments for and against. This is how debates usually work.
      - onli 7y ago
        It's admittedly how show debates work, taking two extreme viewpoints and pitting them against each other. But in questions like this it's not a good way - clear propaganda does not present facts, it manipulates them. This only confuses and makes it impossible to get the proper arguments. It's better to work with sources that have no inherent motivation to lie. A tangent, but this mindset of "there are always two valid sides at the extremes and we need to present both" is said to be a huge burden on the reporting about politics in the US, it makes the most extreme viewpoints visible and supported the rise of the fascists in the GOP. I agree.
sdrothrock 7y ago
> https://www.podniesinski.pl/portal/wp-content/uploads/POD1398.jpg https://www.podniesinski.pl/portal/wp-content/uploads/POD139... If anyone's curious about why this is set up for a ceremony and was left like this (that is, why the timing was so coincidental), it's because the earthquake occurred on the afternoon of March 11, which was a public school graduation day around Japan. Graduations occur in the morning, with students leaving soon after, so no ceremony would have been interrupted. In the afternoon, teachers generally start unwinding and slowly cleaning up the gym, so the earthquake would have taken place then and that explains why the graduation ceremony decorations and a few chairs/tarps are still out.
Grue3 7y ago
Another fearmongering article. EDIT: Google Images finds photos from James Galbraith who took them in early 2018 or earlier, not "8 years on" in the same locations. At first I thought the OP author just took his images and put them on the site with his watermark, but now I think he just took the same tour of exclusion zone and was shown the same carefully preserved locations. Either way it's unfair to characterise the entire "Fukushima" by a few locations specifically preserved to show tsunami/earthquake damage. How about these pictures from April 2019 instead? https://tokuhain.arukikata.co.jp/fukushima/2019/04/post_169.html https://tokuhain.arukikata.co.jp/fukushima/2019/04/post_169....
- morsch 7y ago
  The photographs are stolen and uncredited from James Galbraith who took them in early 2018 or earlier, not "8 years on". That's a very serious claim to make especially considering the author is a professional photographer. I don't see any indication these are stolen, it's just the same subject matter[1]. Maybe you shouldn't run around slandering people without offering proof? [1] Here are some of the photos credited to James Galbraith https://blurp.co.uk/overseas/eerie-pictures-show-the-desolate-streets-of-fukushima-seven-years-after-nuclear-disaster/ https://blurp.co.uk/overseas/eerie-pictures-show-the-desolat...
  - Nemo157 7y ago
    In your link there is a photo of what looks to me like a school hall that could very easily be a cropped and color changed version of a photo included in the OP (/vice-versa).
    - scandinavian 7y ago
      Yeah, the shadows seem to match. And as the OP was posted March 9, they could be indeed be stolen images.
    - ajnin 7y ago
      He must have used secret CSI technology to "uncrop" the picture larger than the one he supposedly "stole".
axelfontaine 7y ago
The irony of having the XBox360 games "biohazard" and "fallout" still on display is simply incredible!
- not-biohazard 7y ago
  Uh, there are no biohazard implications to this incident. It's not a hot zone of contagion.
mimixco 7y ago
Great comments in this thread. Let's also not forget Fukushima is still pouring radiation into the ocean, and that the melted core is unreachable for cleanup.
Jedi72 7y ago
For some reason its the ones with all the expensive equipment that get me. The MRI machine, rows of motorcycles - all presumably instant scrap. Obviously the human loss is greater, but that's not really the focus of these photos.
teoteo 7y ago
The half-life of uranium is thousands years so i never go back there

117 points by D_Alex 7y ago

The other photo essays on the site are well worth checking out also. Especially the one on Buran shuttle!

Article: Unfortunately, decontamination and cleaning are not enough to revive the city. Residents are needed, but they do not want to come back. They remain suspicious of the actions of the government, which assures them that radiation levels have fallen to safe levels. They remember how, just a few years ago, this same government unilaterally raised them. Additionally, the newly opened cities still lack infrastructure — shops, hospitals and restaurants. And, chiefly, neighbors. As a result, both cities remain practically empty. Eight years after the disaster and two after their opening, only about 5% of residents have returned. The vehicles and people seen on the streets only create the appearance of an inhabited city. The majority are cars belonging to construction companies and workers here to clean the area and demolish buildings.

busymom0 7y ago
I am honestly surprised even 5% of the people came back. I personally would not trust a word the government says now considering they were the ones who caused the whole disaster.
- ptaipale 7y ago
  The "whole disaster" was actually a tsunami caused by an earthquake under the sea, and problems around the nuclear plant are just a tiny side-issue compared to the devastation caused by the tsunami. Perhaps the government - many successive governments - could have changed zoning, building code etc so that the disaster would have been smaller, but the nuclear element of the "whole disaster" is just a minor component.
  - toyg 7y ago
    > the nuclear element of the "whole disaster" is just a minor component. If you consider the tsunami "the whole disaster", yes; but if we restrict the issue to the nuclear accident, the Japanese government carries a lot of responsibility. Fukushima, iirc, was an aging and creaking reactor in a somewhat dangerous location, which should have been decommissioned a long time ago. When disaster struck, official reactions were very opaque to begin with - not as bad as the Soviet ones in Chernobyl but definitely not as open as they should have been. Raising radiation thresholds, as mentioned in the article, was particularly egregious; regardless of whether it may or may not be scientifically correct, it's not the right thing to do after something like this, because the optics are (rightly) damning. So yeah, if the Japanese government had done the right thing by closing down Fukushima 10 years before the tsunami, the city would not have died as it did. That is "the whole disaster" for the area.
    - roenxi 7y ago
      > Raising radiation thresholds, as mentioned in the article, was particularly egregious; regardless of whether it may or may not be scientifically correct ... I might be reading this too literally, but if it is scientifically justifiable to raise the radiation thresholds, why not do it? "The government should make decisions based on science" is a little controversial in some less-reputable quarters, but generally speaking it is a good idea. "Optics" do not take precedence when there is a risk of people are being kicked out of their homes or suffering economic losses for unscientific reasons.
      - toyg 7y ago
        > "Optics" do not take precedence when there is a risk of people are being kicked out The duty of care should follow clear priorities: health first, property second. If your priority is really to care for people's health, it's better to be on the safer side, and follow the stricter approach you have on the table. By all means raise thresholds 10 years later "because studies", but not shortly after the accident - regardless of scientific truth, it smacks of interested carelessness while handling people's health. IIRC, people had already been mostly evacuated by that point anyway, it just felt like an attempt to save money and troubles by pushing them back in their homes. Besides, by ignoring optics, they achieved the opposite effect: people distrusted the advice and are still not going back, years after. The government likely lost their trust for ever.
- ekianjo 7y ago
  So far it seems that only one person of those who tried to rescue the nuclear plant, exposed to high radiations, has contracted cancer and we are not certain it is related. The disaster caused by the Tsunami killed 15 000 people. Yeah, by all accounts you should be a lot more worried by the sea than nuclear.
- OscarCunningham 7y ago
  You don't need to trust them. It's easy to measure the radiation levels yourself.
  - kaybe 7y ago
    For rough estimations, a smartphone works reasonably well. https://phys.org/news/2014-06-smartphone-detector-app-positive.html https://phys.org/news/2014-06-smartphone-detector-app-positi... eg https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rdklein.radioactivity&hl=en https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rdklein.ra...
  - sametmax 7y ago
    Locally yes, except you move, and you may not want to live your life carrying a Geiger counter, fearing for you life, for the next 10 years. Plus there is food, and water, and those are in flux. And then there are the things we don't know.
    - roenxi 7y ago
      > carrying a Geiger counter, fearing for you life Is the radiation that scary? My understanding it that it is comparable to living in an area with lead in the water or eating a high-mercury diet of fish. You can just do random spot checks and get plenty of data. One walk in a 10x background radiation park isn't going to do you any harm.
      - sametmax 7y ago
        Easy to be so rational when it's not your town.

lostlogin 7y ago

Thanks for this. For those interested in radioactive wastelands, the current TV series ‘Chernobyl’ seems very good, and so is the book ‘Chernobyl: The History of a Nuclear Catastrophe’ by Serhii Plokhy https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_(miniseries) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_(miniseries) https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36204894 https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36204894

erikstarck 7y ago
Sure, watch it but also read this article for balance: https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelshellenberger/2019/03/11/it-sounds-crazy-but-fukushima-chernobyl-and-three-mile-island-show-why-nuclear-is-inherently-safe/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelshellenberger/2019/03/11... "It Sounds Crazy, But Fukushima, Chernobyl, And Three Mile Island Show Why Nuclear Is Inherently Safe"
- onli 7y ago
  Written by the president of an openly pro-nuclear organization. Do you really think reading propaganda is the way to get a balanced viewpoint?
  - rurounijones 7y ago
    Because it is on his interest to present the facts (that can be checked) the support nuclear power. Just like an anti nuclear article will present facts ( that can be checked) against it. By reading these two sources I can get both sides of the story and see the arguments for and against. This is how debates usually work.
    - onli 7y ago
      It's admittedly how show debates work, taking two extreme viewpoints and pitting them against each other. But in questions like this it's not a good way - clear propaganda does not present facts, it manipulates them. This only confuses and makes it impossible to get the proper arguments. It's better to work with sources that have no inherent motivation to lie. A tangent, but this mindset of "there are always two valid sides at the extremes and we need to present both" is said to be a huge burden on the reporting about politics in the US, it makes the most extreme viewpoints visible and supported the rise of the fascists in the GOP. I agree.

sdrothrock 7y ago

> https://www.podniesinski.pl/portal/wp-content/uploads/POD1398.jpg https://www.podniesinski.pl/portal/wp-content/uploads/POD139... If anyone's curious about why this is set up for a ceremony and was left like this (that is, why the timing was so coincidental), it's because the earthquake occurred on the afternoon of March 11, which was a public school graduation day around Japan. Graduations occur in the morning, with students leaving soon after, so no ceremony would have been interrupted. In the afternoon, teachers generally start unwinding and slowly cleaning up the gym, so the earthquake would have taken place then and that explains why the graduation ceremony decorations and a few chairs/tarps are still out.

Grue3 7y ago

Another fearmongering article. EDIT: Google Images finds photos from James Galbraith who took them in early 2018 or earlier, not "8 years on" in the same locations. At first I thought the OP author just took his images and put them on the site with his watermark, but now I think he just took the same tour of exclusion zone and was shown the same carefully preserved locations. Either way it's unfair to characterise the entire "Fukushima" by a few locations specifically preserved to show tsunami/earthquake damage. How about these pictures from April 2019 instead? https://tokuhain.arukikata.co.jp/fukushima/2019/04/post_169.html https://tokuhain.arukikata.co.jp/fukushima/2019/04/post_169....

morsch 7y ago
The photographs are stolen and uncredited from James Galbraith who took them in early 2018 or earlier, not "8 years on". That's a very serious claim to make especially considering the author is a professional photographer. I don't see any indication these are stolen, it's just the same subject matter[1]. Maybe you shouldn't run around slandering people without offering proof? [1] Here are some of the photos credited to James Galbraith https://blurp.co.uk/overseas/eerie-pictures-show-the-desolate-streets-of-fukushima-seven-years-after-nuclear-disaster/ https://blurp.co.uk/overseas/eerie-pictures-show-the-desolat...
- Nemo157 7y ago
  In your link there is a photo of what looks to me like a school hall that could very easily be a cropped and color changed version of a photo included in the OP (/vice-versa).
  - scandinavian 7y ago
    Yeah, the shadows seem to match. And as the OP was posted March 9, they could be indeed be stolen images.
  - ajnin 7y ago
    He must have used secret CSI technology to "uncrop" the picture larger than the one he supposedly "stole".

axelfontaine 7y ago

The irony of having the XBox360 games "biohazard" and "fallout" still on display is simply incredible!

not-biohazard 7y ago
Uh, there are no biohazard implications to this incident. It's not a hot zone of contagion.

mimixco 7y ago

Great comments in this thread. Let's also not forget Fukushima is still pouring radiation into the ocean, and that the melted core is unreachable for cleanup.

Jedi72 7y ago

For some reason its the ones with all the expensive equipment that get me. The MRI machine, rows of motorcycles - all presumably instant scrap. Obviously the human loss is greater, but that's not really the focus of these photos.

teoteo 7y ago

The half-life of uranium is thousands years so i never go back there